Earlier quoted context omitted.
2032 West Seattle checking in.
West Seattle and Ballard are flip sides of the same coin (that coin being Highway 99).
I’ll happily take a rapid line or light rail over driving the 99.
We have decided to pause driverless operations across all of our fleets
381–390 of 395 posts
Re: We have decided to pause driverless operations across all of our fleets
#382Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree. The location of Chinese HSR stations is terrible. Japan's are much more central.
They all are usually reachable by subway. And subway network in Beijing is top notch.
The main Shanghai HSR station is 45-60 mins from the main business district. That is not convenient. In Japan, all the main HSR stations are incredibly convenient. Usually, walking distance from main business district.
Also, Beijing is a huge city. So what if the "subway network is top notch". It is still frequently 45 mins more travel time on slow subway for final destination.
Re: We have decided to pause driverless operations across all of our fleets
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
"So far" With less than 4 million miles of pure rider only data by relatively early Waymo rollouts in two cities it can be argued there's room for the claims per million miles to climb as the number of deployments rise.
Does it not drive the same roads as human drivers? 4 million miles = 4 million miles.
4 million miles is proportionally less than the width of a gnat against the history of driver miles in the US across all cities, less than a rounding error.
More crucially, these are 4 million entry level service rollout miles .. a time when the company has highly paid engineers paying scrupulous detailed attention to the condition of the cars and the tuning of the automated responses, with jobs dedicated to the avoidance of PR incidents.
comte7092 has pointed out other factors - but these are not "typical miles" these are the miles before typical sets in - who can say if the stats will be maintained as sensors age and maintainence becomes an after tought in the manner typical of human driven cars.
I hope the figure holds up, I'm commenting here on the apples to oranges issues in the comparison at present.
Re: We have decided to pause driverless operations across all of our fleets
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s blown my mind too. We would rather simulate consciousness than put down some tracks.
It’s not feasible to run tracks down every street and dirt road. Each switch is a point of mechanical failure that requires a little intelligence to operate safely. And people and animals would still get run over.
Who said we should? You don’t need to lay tracks literally everywhere there is a road, just the main arteries like trams, trains and subways do. I meant ‘lay down some tracks’ as installing good public transport, not as a one to one replacement.
Re: We have decided to pause driverless operations across all of our fleets
#385Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s not feasible to run tracks down every street and dirt road. Each switch is a point of mechanical failure that requires a little intelligence to operate safely. And people and animals would still get run over.
Who said we should? You don’t need to lay tracks literally everywhere there is a road, just the main arteries like trams, trains and subways do. I meant ‘lay down some tracks’ as installing good public transport, not as a one to one replacement.
A self-driving car that can park in a remote location to recharge and won’t behave like a great ape? That fixes the few disadvantages of cars.
Mass transit in batches has its own major disadvantages, and I’d prefer to obsolete it than have to settle for it.
Re: We have decided to pause driverless operations across all of our fleets
#386Are self-driving cars actually going to be lucrative? Yes, the progress is promising, but it seems to me (as an observer that knows nothing) that things aren't very scalable. - It seems like every city pretty much requires a custom-tailored solution, and they still haven't solved the "downtown" problem. - It's far more of a regulatory minefield than a pure software business model. - The cars themselves, in addition t…
Teslas solve most of these but you can't mention Tesla here without people raising your pitchforks at you, and of course that's assuming that Tesla manages level 5 some day
Re: We have decided to pause driverless operations across all of our fleets
#387Re: We have decided to pause driverless operations across all of our fleets
#388Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Public transit is no good. It's easy and convenient: • https://youtu.be/SDXB0CY2tSQ?t=43 • https://youtu.be/muPcHs-E4qc?t=65 > I don’t want to walk to a station and then share the space with other people. I don’t want to lug grocery bags around. Alright, use a bicycle then. I hear ebikes are pretty good these days. Or use a micro car if you must: https://youtu.be/B9ly7JjqEb0?t=101 . > I want to make pit stops. A bi…
A bicycle is trash (fun to ride, not that useful). What are you going to carry on your bike? Five bags? That’s not even going to get your family through 3 days. I don’t want to go 5 miles away, I want to go 200. With bikes and walking, your world is small. Electric cars powered by renewable energy get rid of most of the negative externalities. For those that remain, that’s too bad because just like eating meat I’m no…
> A bicycle is trash (fun to ride, not that useful).
Entirely dependent on the infrastructure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqQSwQLDIK8
> What are you going to carry on your bike? Five bags?
Seems like a lot of groceries to buy at a time, but if you really want to: https://youtu.be/rQhzEnWCgHA?t=379
> I don’t want to go 5 miles away, I want to go 200.
You cover 200 miles every day? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REni8Oi1QJQ&t=185s
Regardless, you can own a car for those longer journeys just fine and still make most trips by bicycle.
> With bikes and walking, your world is small.
Yeah, that's why public transport is important too. Cars as well, although deprioritized.
> Electric cars powered by renewable energy get rid of most of the negative externalities.
They get rid of some of the noise and almost all of the harmful exhaust. That's about it. They're still 2 ton+ massive steel cages that are incredibly dangerous to everyone else, take up a ridiculous amount of space, and require extremely expensive infrastructure.
As for the rest, sure, I'm not really criticising your particular choices, it sounds like you live in a rural area where a car is necessary anyway. However, there's no way for everybody to be able to live like you do. There are just too many people. We need to live with long-term sustainability in mind.
Re: We have decided to pause driverless operations across all of our fleets
#389This is a good move on Cruise's part. Cruise is still nowhere near the maturity level that Waymo was at when Waymo first started driving on public roads. On the other hand, we definitely need a real competitor to Waymo. It doesn't seem likely, but hopefully some combination of Cruise, Apple(?), Tesla, or another player will be able to have a feasible alternative to Waymo's Driver.
Out of all the tech problems to solve, driverless cars or driverless taxis has always baffled me. It’s a very complex thing to solve with a zillion edge cases. And for what net gain? What incredible inconvenience are we trying to solve? Lack of good public transit? Let’s solve that instead. Millions of cars driverless or not are not a great solution to anything.
Public transit is not a viable solution. Requires riders to give up far too much autonomy. Covid shows us this unambiguously. We did not require people to mask up inside their own vehicles, while we did require them to wear masks inside public transportation. There were no serious efforts to require vaccination for driving a personal vehicle, but there were serious efforts to require vaccination to ride public transport. I'm permitted to carry a firearm inside my own vehicle, but this is often forbidden on public transit.
A personal vehicle also provides you with a relatively robust protective exoskeleton, while with public transport you are much more vulnerable. Even worse, one encounters the the more frightening elements of society when riding public transportation at a much higher rate. When you combine this loss of autonomy with the increased dangers of riding public transport, it's to many Americans that private vehicles are a vastly superior mode of transportation.
Re: We have decided to pause driverless operations across all of our fleets
#390Earlier quoted context omitted.
It depends on how you define “urban.” The way the census defines it, less than 20% of the US population is non-urban.
I specifically mentioned urban centers - the places easily reached by mass transit. Even in dense cities, many neighborhoods are far enough away from mass transit lines that smaller vehicles are required. Taxis would be a better option than zillions of privately owned cars, and self-driving would make it economical.
Is there a codified definition of urban center? Because it’s not a term used by the census definitions; they define urban area.
If your define non-urban center as one far from mass transit to defend the need for cars, it becomes circular logic. It’s probably better to refer to more official definitions, which already reference population density.